FRIDAY, JANUARY 14, 2005
Volume 4, Issue 54
FR EE
Santa Monica Daily Press A newspaper with issues
1 11 18 35 37
Councilman denies conflict of interest
DAILY 3
BY JOHN WOOD
DAILY LOTTERY
Denied
SUPER LOTTO 3 17 20 28 44 Meganumber: 21 Jackpot: $7 Million
FANTASY 5 Daytime: Evening:
520 584
Daily Press Staff Writer
DAILY DERBY 1st: 2nd: 3rd:
04 Big Ben 10 Solid Gold 06 Whirl Win
RACE TIME:
1:44.72
City Councilman Herb Katz defended his actions this week after questions were raised concerning his loyalties to Santa Monica’s lucrative auto dealers. Katz, an architect, for years has drafted remodels and expansions for the auto dealers. His wife manages the Mercedes HERB KATZ dealership on Wilshire Boulevard. Still, Katz denied a conflict of interest in voting on city actions
NEWS OF THE WEIRD BY CHUCK SHEPARD
The Sacramento Fire Department reported in November that a resident had dropped by the fire station on Granada Way in order to turn in a grenade he had found in his garage. It was later safely detonated. (As in many previous such episodes nationwide, Sacramento authorities requested that anyone who comes across a bomb or grenade should simply report its whereabouts, and not pick it up and, especially, not bring it to them.)
TODAY IN HISTORY In 1900, Puccini’s opera “Tosca” received a mixed reception at its world premiere in Rome. In 1914, Ford Motor Company greatly improved its assembly-line operation by employing a chain to pull each chassis along. In 1943, President Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill opened a wartime conference in Casablanca. In 1952, NBC’s “Today” show premiered, with Dave Garroway as the host, or “communicator,” as he was officially known. In 1953, Josip Broz Tito was elected president of Yugoslavia by the country’s Parliament. In 1963, George C. Wallace was sworn in as governor of Alabama with a pledge of “segregation forever.”
QUOTE OF THE DAY “Too clever is dumb.”
OGDEN NASH
Horoscopes Where the party is, Taurus
2
Officials are still deciding on a suitable site for center BY JOHN WOOD Daily Press Staff Writer
Nicky Five Aces/Five Aces Photo Santa Monica College’s Kristine Jensen, a 6-foot-2-inch sophomore center from Copenhagen, Denmark, has her shot blocked by 5-foot-9-inch Janette Galindo of College of the Canyons during a game Wednesday night. Santa Monica lost 82-64.
Water Temperature: 59°
3
Opinion Governor on target
4
Entertainment ‘Coach Carter’ got game
8
National Marijuana case reinstated
11
Comics Yuk it up
13
Classifieds A prime location
14-15
CITY HALL — It will cost only $200,000 a year to run a sobering center for public drunks in Santa Monica that, once built, is expected to save millions of dollars in emergency response and medical care. That’s the message Clare Foundation Executive Director Nicholas Vrataric delivered to city
officials this week during a discussion of the proposed sobering center, which will be modeled after a similar program in San Diego. Officials at Clare, a nonprofit organization that assists drug and alcohol addicts, hope to run the center. Vrataric said the sobering center likely would serve about 1,500 public drunks a year by giving them a place to sober up and seek treatment without consuming police and fire resources, and clogging hospital emergency See GOALS, page 7
Storm washed debris, sewage, even snakes onto beaches BY LAURA WIDES
Surf Report
See KATZ, page 6
Goals spelled out for SM sobering center
AMERICAN AUTHOR-HUMORIST (1902-1971)
INDEX
that affect the dealerships, which last year generated $5.1 million in sales-tax revenue for City Hall from new car sales alone. “We have no financial interests in any of the dealerships,” Katz said Thursday. “I am simply a hired gun, like an attorney would be.” The dealerships, located mostly on Santa Monica Boulevard, are pushing for a set of zoning-law changes that would allow them, among other things, to use empty lots for employee parking and to store inventory. The changes are scheduled to go before the City Council in August. Katz on Tuesday asked his fellow council members to consider
Associated Press Writer
LOS ANGELES — The storm that pummeled California over 15 days sent tons of debris and millions of gallons of wastewater hurtling into the ocean, forcing officials to close dozens of beaches. Tires, lumber and trees were piled 12 feet high on some shores in Ventura County. Lifeguards warned beachgoers to be wary even on the sand, as rattlesnakes could
Jacquie Banks
be hiding under the driftwood. “People come beachcombing and they should watch out,” said Los Angeles County lifeguard Capt. Dan Atkins. “The snakes, they hibernate in areas that get cut away when the rain comes, and they just get washed out with the debris.” The storm prompted officials to close 74 beaches due to sewage spills and overflow as of Wednesday. Advisories were to remain in effect at dozens more through next week.
“Bacteria levels are all exceedingly high based upon all the information, so the best thing is to avoid contact with ocean water,” said Bernard Franklin, chief of Los Angeles County’s Recreational Health Department. Much of the pollution was due to runoff from urban and agricultural areas. But mudslides also damaged aging sewer lines across the Southern California. “Infrastructure is such a big issue statewide, but it’s something
people just don’t want to pay for. It’s out of sight out of mind ... until you see raw sewage in the street,” said Mark Gold, executive director of the nonprofit group Heal the Bay in Santa Monica. Wednesday morning, a hillside north of Malibu collapsed, breaking a major sewer line and sending more than 1 million gallons of waste into a creek. The sewage was projected to reach Malibu’s beaches by evening. See STORM, page 10
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